Our Reflections
by Space Dimentio
Summary: He'd been feeling worse every day. It had started shortly before Christmas, which they had celebrated together a few days ago. Tonight, when the clock chimed twelve times, it would be a new year.


It was some time before the count found him sitting alone on the roof, staring out into the abyss. Time meant little in The Void, but they kept track of it for their own sakes.

He'd been feeling worse every day. It had started shortly before Christmas, which they had celebrated together a few days ago. Tonight, when the clock chimed twelve times, it would be a new year.

He didn't know what to expect when Count Bleck quietly sat beside him, joining him in gazing at the swirling destruction. He wasn't sure of anything anymore. His heart wouldn't beat regularly and without guilt these days.

"…What are you doing up here, Dimentio?" the count asked after a moment.

"…Thinking…" he said.

"About what?"

"Nothing, really…" He didn't speak again for a long time. He turned to his blue-skinned companion. "What do you feel about…this?" He gestured outwards. "Do you want to take it back?"

The count's head lowered. "…I don't know."

"Shouldn't you know?"

"I suppose so, but I don't."

"No third person today, I see," he said, smiling slightly.

The count snorted and ignored the comment.

"Do you really want to destroy everything? …To watch it all burn?" he continued. "Perhaps you do, but I doubt it's in the same way that I do." His black-gloved hand tightened into a fist as he turned away.

"Why? You never did tell me."

He shook his head. "And I doubt I ever will."

They fell to silence for a while.

"It really hurts, you know," he muttered. " _You're. So. Lucky._ "

"Lucky?" The count blinked in confusion. "How so?"

"You've had so many things I've never had. It's really quite too late for me."

"Hmm…" It was clear he only half understood.

"Tell me, my count… What do you see when you look in a mirror? Do you like what you see?"

"…No…"

He smiled. "Me neither. …Sometimes, I really wonder…"

Count Bleck said nothing, only listened.

He looked into those burning crimson eyes. "What is it like…to be happy?"

The count sadly looked back at him. Then, he leaned over and embraced him, wrapping his arms around him tightly.

He sighed, tensing and prepared to pull away.

The blue-skinned man whispered into his ear, " _Maybe you should stop resisting everything._ "

He managed to relax and laid his head on the supporting chest. Curious, how he could hear a heart beating there.

Still, he could never feel completely safe. So he pulled away after all.

"I suppose I should thank you…for all that you've done for me."

"That won't be necessary," the count said firmly. He knew that the jester didn't quite feel the same about the rest of them as they did about him. He knew Dimentio was thinking about something, something that made him feel extremely conflicted. He could only hope they would all make the right decision in the end.

The jester pretended not to feel the dull ache in his chest. He wished it would go away. He wished he didn't feel the things he did, because it was all a mystery to him.

"Do you know what I see?" he said, masked lips pulling up into a fake characteristic smile. "When I look at myself in the mirror, all I see is this smile of mine." A small tremor passed through him. " _I'm a monster…_ "

"No, you're not."

"On the contrary."

"If you're a monster, then I am as well," the count replied. "We all are."

He laughed, the sound ringing emptily in the cold air. "Oh, you simply have no idea, count. _No idea._ "

"It doesn't matter."

"Of course it does. Who wants to be around someone like me, right?"

"Dimentio…"

"No, don't deny it. Don't act as if I didn't have to beg to be in your mere presence."

Count Bleck shook his head wordlessly. "Now-"

"Now, time is running out! Only now can we see that we are not exempt from our fates after all, like prehistoric beasts hunted to extinction, ah ha ha…"

"…Are you ok?"

"No! How could I be? How could _anyone_ be ok?!" He convulsed into laughter, a sneer painted on his mask. Once he recovered himself, he went on, "I've read it, you know. The Dark Prognosticus. Things really aren't going to end well."

The count frowned. "How-"

"You think such pitiful spells could keep me out? You are _so_ soft. Such a soft, weak heart for a destroyer of worlds."

" _Enough._ "

"As you wish."

From below them came the faint sound of twelve steady bongs. In front of them, The Void continued on its unstoppable path to annihilation.

"A new year…" he whispered as the last chime faded to silence. "It's hard to believe that it's really been over a year since this began."

"More than that," the count supplied. "To think I took the book almost three years ago…"

"How time does fly," he tsked.

Neither felt the need to say more. After the clock marked the passage of a quarter hour, the count stood. "Go to bed soon," he said, comfortingly squeezing the other's shoulder with one hand. He walked a few paces away and stopped. He hesitated. "You…You're family, you know… I do…love and care for you…"

He was glad the count departed a moment later, as he would surely have caught the way his breath suddenly hitched.

It was some time before he left as well, tears streaming in tiny rivulets down his mask.


End file.
